Precious Bones (12 page)

“LeRoy, we know good and well that’s what happened. So what?”

“Well, sir, seems like the rest of ’im got found. I hired Jakey Toms and his hound dogs and they found the body—or what was left of it—buried in a muck pit. Out at about the end of your swamp.”

“Is that so? Well, it’s a big swamp, LeRoy; if you’re stupid and you don’t know what you’re doing, a swamp will eat you right up.”

“That may be true, but the interesting thing about that body is the bullet hole in that man’s head.”

“You don’t say. And just what’s the point of tellin’ me about this, LeRoy?”

“Just doin’ my job is all. I’ll be doin’ a little more po-lease work. Might be stoppin’ by your place to ask a few questions.”

“You do that, LeRoy, you just do that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a long day. I need to get my family home.”

Sheriff LeRoy turned toward me and Mama; he tipped his oversized Stetson and said, “Evenin’, Miss Lori.” He turned slowly and squeaked, clinked, and jingled off into the gloom of dusk.

As Nolay slid into the driver’s seat, Mama asked him, “What was that all about?”

“Lori, Honey Girl, it was just LeRoy being LeRoy. Don’t worry your pretty little head about a thing.”

We
weren’t
worried about it then, but maybe we should have been. It would be all too soon that Sheriff LeRoy would come jingling back into our lives.

After we returned from our trip, Mama went on one of her cleaning rampages. She cleaned out our closets and dug through the big cedar chest she kept at the end of her bed. That cedar chest was where we stored clothes and anything else of value to keep them from being devoured by bugs.

When I came in for noon dinner, Mama announced, “Bones, I have some boxes of clothes and other stuff you’ve outgrown, and we need to take them out to the Reems family.”

“The Reemses! Mama, do I have to go out there?”

“Well, if you don’t come along, it won’t look like a friendly visit, and they might take this as charity.”

“Mama, I know you been gathering clothes and stuff up from all our neighbors for a week now. Can’t you just drop those boxes off by yourself?”

Mama’s eyes were soft and mirrored as she quietly said, “Because you are too busy, those poor, innocent little children will have to do without?”

Without thinking, I opened my mouth and blurted out,
“Mama, those Reems boys are meaner than a cornered polecat. I nearly hate being around them. I don’t want to go out to that white-trash place. Everybody knows—” Before I could finish my act of stupidity, Mama reached over and pulled so hard on my ear I thought my face would be permanently lopsided.

“Bones,” she said, “I better never hear that come out of your mouth again. Just because someone doesn’t have as much as another person doesn’t make them trash. And don’t you ever forget that.”

“Yes, ma’am. But Mama, it was you yourself told me anyone that didn’t have at least one copy of the
Saturday Evening Post
just wasn’t civilized and could be considered white trash.”

“Bones, I do not recall ever having said such a thing, although it could be true. Now, let’s just move on. After you finish your dinner, you help me put those boxes in the truck and we are going to the Reemses’. And you are going to act civil.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After we loaded the back of the truck with boxes of clothes and canned vegetables, we started the butt-bruising ride out to the Reems compound.

The Reems family had a hundred-acre track of land that bordered ours. Most of their land consisted of scrub palmetto and pine trees. As we pulled into the bare dirt yard, a couple of half-starved hound dogs and two dirty-faced little boys came out to meet us. Mama looked in my direction and whispered, “Bones, you will be kind.”

With my ear still red and burning, I answered, “Yes, ma’am.”

The main house, where Peckerhead Willy and his young wife, Miss Alvie, lived was a dilapidated two-story clapboard structure. A board was nailed across one broken window and another had a piece of tar paper hanging over it. Off to the side was a barn with both doors missing and an old smokehouse that leaned so far to one side it was propped up with logs. Past the old barn, I could see the smaller house where Whackerstacker Joe lived with his three boys. Their mama, Miss Alice, died when the youngest boy was born. The boys—Fats, Skeeter, and Smokey—ranged in age from seventeen to nine, and each one of them was meaner than a bee-stung bull.

On the sagging front porch, old Ma Reems sat in her rocking chair. The screen door squeaked open and Miss Alvie stepped out. Mama got out of the truck, walked up to the porch, and spoke to Ma Reems. “Morning, Miz Reems.”

Old Ma Reems didn’t even look in Mama’s direction, just rocked back and forth, chewing on her wad of tobacco. Mama turned her attention toward the screen door. “Morning, Miss Alvie, how are you doing today?”

Miss Alvie held Baby Teddy in her arms. She came down the steps and walked out into the sunlight. A small bulge in her belly poked at the front of her thin cotton skirt. The two dirty-faced boys, Tim and Tom, rushed over, dug their faces into her skirt, and wrapped their arms around her like little octopuses.

In the bleak front yard, Mama looked as out of place as a peacock in a henhouse. She wore a white blouse and a pair of blue corduroy pants; her honey-blond hair fell to her shoulders and sparkled in the bright Florida sun. Miss Alvie stood
next to her in a skirt and blouse that had been washed to drabness; she resembled a little gray rag doll.

The screen door opened again and two girls walked down the steps. I recognized Martha and Ruthie from school and from other non-charity visits to this house. Mama turned to me and said, “Bones, you get out of the truck and come say hello to Miss Alvie and the kids.”

The girls, like their mama, were frail and small-boned; they reminded me of little whooping cranes wearing dresses. Their skin was the color of fresh milk. Huge brown eyes peered out from their thin faces. Their coal-black bangs were cut straight across their forehead, and their hair hung down to their bony shoulders. Martha was two grades ahead of me; Ruthie was two years behind me. We had an unspoken pact. Sometimes, when Martha wasn’t around to protect her, Ruthie was tormented on the playground by Betty Jean Davis and some of her butterfly girls. They made fun of Ruthie’s worn clothes, the muck sores on her legs, any flaw they could open and pick at. There were a couple of times when me or Little Man had stepped in and put a stop to it.

“Hey, Martha,” I said, “Hey, Ruthie.”

“Hey, Bones,” Ruthie said. “You want to come see some kittens? My calico had five babies a couple days ago. They still got their eyes closed. They’re in the barn, you want to see ’em?”

“Sure, Ruthie, I’d like that. Mama, we’re going over to the barn.”

“Bones, before you go, just help me carry these boxes inside the house.”

Mama went to the back of the truck, handed a box to me, one to Martha, and picked up another one. Ruthie ran up the steps and opened the screen door for us.

Miss Alvie said, “Just put them right there on the floor. I’ll tend to them later on. Thank you so much.”

“Don’t stay too long now,” Mama said. “We have to get back and finish up our chores.”

Inside the barn, the air was filled with the pungent smell of hay and manure. Thin gray lines of light crept in through cracks in the roof and walls. Ruthie took us over to a corner where a small calico cat lay nestled in a box, nursing her kittens. As the three of us squatted down to see the kittens, the bottom of Ruthie’s thin cotton dress got caught on some hay and rose above her skinny thigh. Several purple marks, the perfect shape of a belt buckle, stained her white skin. Martha reached over and quickly pulled the dress down. I had seen those marks before, at school, only then they had been on Martha’s legs.

Ruthie stood up and said, “I only see three kittens. Two of ’em are lost; we gotta look for ’em.”

“Then you better go out and dig in the pig muck, ’cause I done fed ’em to my hawgs.”

Startled, we looked up to see Skeeter, Whackerstacker Joe’s twelve-year-old boy, saunter toward us with his younger brother, Smokey, in tow. Their greasy, freckled skin glistened as they walked through the dim rays of light. The boys were the mirror image of their father, both in looks and disposition. They resembled fat, brown-haired possums. Skeeter hooked his chubby thumbs in the tops of his dirty overalls. “My hawgs
et ’em up like little gumdrops. We don’t need no more mouths to feed round here. I’m a-gonna take the rest of them little rats and drown ’em in the creek. Might take the mama this time, too.”

Ruthie’s huge brown eyes filled with tears, and she began to sob and plead. “Please don’t hurt ’em, Skeeter. I’ll take care of ’em. Please don’t hurt ’em.” Skeeter swaggered toward the little nest. I stood up and stepped in front of him. He stopped and leveled his beady eyes at me.

I stood my ground. I could hear Nolay’s voice echo in my ears. “Remember, Bones, it don’t matter the size of a man, it only matters the size of the situation. A man’s fear can be bigger than he is. Never show your fear, and you’ll always be bigger than your situation.”

Skeeter squinted down at me. “What you gonna do, swamp monkey, you gonna stop me? You ain’t nothin’ but a puny little ol’ swamp girl. I’ll break your scrawny neck and feed you to my hawgs.”

Smokey stood behind his big brother and chimed in, “Yeah, you ain’t nothin’ but a swamp monkey, a girl swamp monkey.”

I took a deep breath and puffed myself up like a barnyard rooster. “Skeeter Reems, you possum-faced pig head, you’re lower than a dried-up booger. If you want those kittens, you’re gonna have to come through me to get ’em. You might win, but you’re sure gonna know you tangled with somethin’ bad.”

I saw movement from the corner of my eye and felt something warm move close to my side. I looked to see Martha standing there with a pitchfork. She looked directly at Skeeter
and whispered, “Get on outta here, Skeeter. If you touch Ruthie’s kittens, I’m gonna stick you, I’m gonna stick you good.”

Skeeter stepped back so quick he stumbled into Smokey, and both of them almost fell down. He glared at us and said, “I ain’t scared of you girls. I’ll get my knife and gut you like dead mullets.”

“Shut your mouth, Skeeter!” The doorway to the barn filled with the hulking frame of Fats Reems. Fats was the oldest brother. He also looked like a possum, just a fatter one. As Fats ambled toward us, the two younger boys began to back away. “Get on back to the house and keep your stupid yaps shut.” Fats turned toward us. “You girls take them cats up to the house and keep ’em out a sight.” He turned and waddled back toward the door.

Silently, the three of us gathered up the mama cat and her kittens and walked back up to the house. Ruthie got a wood box and we made a nest for the kittens on the far end of the sagging porch. Ma Reems sat in her rocker like an old sack of potatoes and slowly squeaked back and forth. Her only other movement was an occasional twist of her head as she spat out a black stream of chewing tobacco. Thin brown lines of tobacco ran down the wrinkles on both sides of her craggy old face.

Just as Mama and Miss Alvie walked out the screen door, Peckerhead Willy staggered around the corner and leaned up against the stair railing. His body reeked of stale sweat and sour mash. He spoke to Mama in a voice thick and slurred. “What kind of charity you bringin’ to my house this time?”

Mama softly replied, “I haven’t brought any charity, Mr. Reems, just sharing an overflow of abundance from the good Lord.”

He glared at her. “The Lord ain’t never give me nuthin’ but trouble. I don’t care for nuthin’ he got to give out.”

Mama turned toward Miss Alvie. “It’s been a pleasure, Alvie, and we’ll have to get together again soon. Bones, you say goodbye to Miss Alvie and the girls.” Then she brushed past Peckerhead Willy as though he were a pile of dried dog poop and curtly said, “Good day, Mr. Reems, and I hope the good Lord continues to rain his blessings on you.”

On the drive home Mama gripped the steering wheel so tight her knuckles turned white. I broke the silence and asked, “Mama, do you think there is a
Saturday Evening Post
at the Reemses’ house?” She glanced at me sideways but did not reply, so I continued. “I like the girls, it’s just those boys. I would rather have a boil on my butt than spend time with them.” Mama continued to look straight ahead and drive in silence. “Seems like they get pleasure out of being hurtful to things. I don’t know why Soap Sally hasn’t turned them into a bucket of soap by now. And Mama, why does Miss Alvie look so much younger than Mr. Peckerhead?”

“Because she
is
younger, Bones. There are some things that you are just too young to understand.” Almost absently she muttered under her breath, “I don’t understand some things myself.” The rest of the ride home was made in silence.

That night after supper, I lay in my bed, surrounded by several cats and Nippy Raccoon purring contentedly. The muffled voices of Mama and Nolay drifted out over the quiet and into my room. “That poor woman,” Mama said. “She’s been with that awful man nearly her whole life. In a couple of months, she’ll give birth to their fourth child. Although she had powder on it, I could still see the bruise around her eye. No one should have to live like that. That hateful old man!”